The lawyer for the owner of coffee shop Caza in Tilburg calls it ‘the world upside down’ that the coffee shop has to close by order of the mayor. Mayor Theo Weterings announced on Thursday that the coffee shop must close after ten attacks in about three years. The owner is appealing against the closure. “The victim is punished and the perpetrators go free.”
According to lawyer Bisar Çiçek, revoking the permit sends the wrong signal. “The signal that the mayor is sending is: attackers, you can commit an attack. As mayor, I will close that store.” According to the lawyer, the mayor should look at his own role: “If the mayor is unable to deploy the police properly, he should not blame my client.”
Three young people aged fifteen, sixteen and nineteen have been arrested in recent years after attacks, but it is still unclear who exactly is behind them. The lawyer is disappointed in the results of the police investigation. “If ten attacks are committed and you still have not caught a perpetrator, then you are failing as a police.”
READ ALSO: Ten attacks on coffee shop Caza: this is what happened in the past three years
‘Sham measures’
To ensure safety, preventive searches were carried out in the area surrounding the coffee shop. “But that was only during the day,” Çiçek notes. “And all the attacks were committed at night.”
According to the lawyer, the mayor should have made better use of cameras and visible police patrols. “The measures that the mayor has now taken are nothing but sham measures.”
On appeal
After the tenth attack in January, the coffee shop was closed until at least February. The coffee shop owner has until January 28 to object to the mayor’s decision. “And we will do that,” says the lawyer. “We will take whatever legal action we can take.”
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